A representative sample of 1,002 Los Angeles adults responded to vignettes on parent-child conflict by indicating their support for the position of either the parent or the child. Adults' perspectives on children's rights to autonomy were examined in the nine substantive areas of education, privacy, appearance, religion, economics, sexual conduct, access to media, political participation and public responsibility, and social participation. In all these areas, there is a lack of consensus about children's rights among adults. Social characteristics of the sample, however, correlate with views on this issue in ways consistent with a general liberal-conservative orientation. George W. Bohrnstedt is Professor of Sociology at Indiana University at Bloomington, Howard E. Freeman is Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and Tom Smith is a graduate student in psychology at UCLA. The data for this study were collected as part of Grant #86-P-80086/9, Social and Rehabilitation Service, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The authors are grateful to Professors Jeanne M. Giovannoni, Principal Investigator, and Rosina Becerra, Project Director, for their collaboration. The authors wish to acknowledge the advice of Orville C. Brim, Jr., Linda B. Bourque, Bernice Eiduson, Norma D. Feshbach, Seymour Feshbach, Robert J. Levy, Lisbeth B. Schoor, John G. Simon, and Heidi Segal. The Foundation for Child Development provided partial support for George Bohrnstedt during the study. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 45:443-462 ? 1981 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/81/0045-443/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.149 on Sat, 09 Jul 2016 05:39:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 444 BOHRNSTEDT, FREEMAN, AND SMITH ago (Cohen et al., 1958), we found only two studies. Rogers and Wrightsman (1978) developed scales to measure orientations toward children's rights; the polar ends of the scales are nurturance (giving children what is good for them) and self-determination (giving children the right to decide for themselves). They administered the scales to a sample (N = 381) consisting of four groups: high school juniors and seniors from a metropolitan area, undergraduate college education majors, undergraduates enrolled at two small liberal arts colleges in fields other than education, and adults in continuing education courses, All respondents were more likely to favor extending rights of nurturance than rights of self-determination. As Rogers and Wrightsman note, people apparently are more willing to make the children comfortable than to give them freedom. A second relevant study (General Mills, 1977) found that (defined as condoning strict discipline for children, including spanking) compared to temperate and permissive parents were more likely to be older, religious males with three or more children. Because of the meager amount of previous research, our study was conceived as a methodological as well as substantive inquiry. In this paper, we describe our efforts (1) to measure adult views about children's rights to decide matters for themselves, (2) to identify variations in perspectives related to the age of the child being evaluated and the area of behavior examined, and (3) to locate social demographic correlates of differing perspectives. In the conclusions, we briefly examine the findings in the light of current concerns over the rights of children.